Roger Chillingworth in Scarlet Letter As his name suggests, Roger Chillingworth in Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Scarlet Letter comes across as a cold-hearted character. Early in the novel, Chillingworth is depicted as a neglectful husband, whose unfulfilled promise to join his wife in the New World led Hester to commit adultery. However, as The Scarlet Letter progresses, Roger Chillingworth becomes more of a pitiful character than an evil one. Chillingworth is physically deformed; his shoulders are unnaturally stooped. Once he realizes Hester is pregnant with another man's child, he is bent on seeking revenge. Chillingworth devotes his power and attention to the degradation of his wife and her lover, using his status as a doctor to assume a mask of respectability. However, his efforts are in vain. The town sees Chillingworth for the leech that he is. Roger Chillingworth is the cold-hearted, nefarious man that Hawthorne paints him out to be, because he favors revenge over truth, justice, and forgiveness. However, Chillingworth thinks,...
Although Roger Chillingworth is the embodiment of evil in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter, he also evokes pity, as he has no inner strength.
When Hester is first alone with Chillingworth, for instance, and in several preceding descriptions, she appears to be undergoing a process of destruction herself. She is immensely ashamed, and very aware of the eyes that dart furtively towards the letter emblazoned on her chest; she is too weak to think straight when Chillingworth administers a medicine to Pearl that could, for all Hester knows, be poison, and she is
Lastly, Roger as the former and unknown husband of Hester has also shown depth in character by assuming the role of both a vengeful and still-caring husband for Hester. In addition to these personalities, Roger has also risen from anonymity to prominence as a physician in the town of Salem. Although Roger was consistently driven by revenge and ill feelings against the lover of Hester, he showed wisdom and righteousness
Given that slavery and sexism were still pervasive realities in American society in the middle of the nineteenth century, the Scarlet Letter borders on being a radical work. Hawthorne also reveals how religion had pervaded Massachusetts Bay society to the extent that public laws reflected Christianity. The idea that Church and State should be separate did not emerge until much later in American consciousness, and by the time Hawthorne wrote
He listens to conversations, watches Hollingsworth and Zenobia together, and flaunts their relationship in Priscilla's face, when it is clear she loves Hollingsworth. In this, he is selfish, just as he has accused the others of being, and he uses the others in a sort of voyeuristic way. In addition, Coverdale, even though he is the narrator of the story, seems removed from it somehow. He does not understand
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